Life- its seriousness, absurdity and reality

personal growth

There is no denying that social websites’ usage is at its peak. According to Pew Research Centre, 74% of internet users use social networking sites. 71% of online adults use Facebook, 23% Twitter, 26% Instagram, 28% LinkedIn. It is used for a variety of purposes such as social networking, uploading statuses, blogging, uploading photos and videos, promotion of businesses, establishing of online businesses, information seeking, entertainment, etc. We spend most of our time of the day on these websites. So it is very important to use them intelligently. How do you do that? Well, the following are some of the strategies that you could adopt on using social websites.

1. Don’t spend too much time on them.

It is important not to give too much of your time unless you really have to, for e.g for the promotion of your business or setting one, for networking which is benefiting you in an important way, or for an emergency purpose that you feel you can’t be away from it too long. Your time is precious, you don’t want to waste it scrolling through unimportant stuff and which are in no use to you. Ask yourselves, how could you have so no life that you are wasting it on trying to figure out what is going on in others’ and that too is upsetting you, because they seem far more happier and contented than you. So benefit from it, do what you have to do and skip the non essential stuff.

2.Set a fixed time.

Everyday when you wakeup in the morning, ask yourself when am i going to be free today where i am going to just relax and don’t do anything important. And then prescribe that time to using social websites. What this would do is that it would prevent you from wasting your time. It would stop the urge of taking out your phone in the middle of an important meeting, or studying or while interacting with your friend. Tell yourself each day that this is my time during which i am allowed to login to my social websites and i am not going to use them any other time. It could be in the morning from 8am to 9am or 2pm to 2.30pm or 9pm to 11pm, whatever time suits you. I know it is easier said than done but believe me, it is just going to be hard in the first few days or weeks maximum, but after you get through that period, it is going to be very normal. You would be surprised you are going through the whole day without going into your social sites other than your fixed time that you have set for it.

3.Be wise.

Now there are a lot of people who may be feeling just fine but as soon as they log in to their Facebook accounts, smiles on their faces disappear. Why? Because they are browsing through this album of their friend who is having so much fun and he/she is but all alone. First of all, if that is the case, then deactivate yourself from this virtual world. You won’t have to see anyone laughing and having amazing times, and it could help you immensely in lowering your depression. But if you can’t do that either, then wise up, if people have the right to enjoy their lives, so do you. Go out with friends and family members and have the best of your times. Take selfies and videos and upload them. What this would do is that it would allow you to come out of these feelings of being alone and everybody having fun. You would also notice that you are enjoying seeing other people having fun because you are.

By great, i mean exceptional, extra ordinary, special, distinctive, remarkable. So how do people achieve uncommon feats? What makes them so rare that we have to put them in these lists of outstanding individuals and not regard them as any other human beings? Sure, they have same features, same brain, same body as you and i have. But how do they get ahead of us?

Persistence is the word that comes to my mind when i talk about them. Along with great qualities of optimism, humility, imagination, capability, fearlessness, encouragement, the one that matters the most in the long run, is their perseverance, their life long commitment to their vision. If you ever listen to them or read them, they would tell you, the core ingredient of their success was to keep on pushing in what they believed.

Most of these people that we call them now as remarkable individuals, were once called crazy, out of their mind, irrational, illogical people who didn’t know what they were doing. But as it turns out, they took all the beatings and were as steadfast in their madness as ever. It was their perseverance that eventually enlisted them in the books of history and highly achieved people. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Dhirubhai Ambani, Andre Agassi, Louis Armstrong sure had a vision and passion in them. But to be honest with you, that vision can go away pretty quickly if you are mocked, and labeled with all sorts of ridicules and scorns. Keep on pushing no matter what, is all that matters and eventually that tenacity would help you realise your dream. Some people would argue that having a vision and being optimistic about it is more important, sure having a dream is important to achieve greatness and is in fact the initial step towards mastery but if you don’t have the perseverance with it, to avoid all the obstacles that comes along with it, how do you expect to achieve the unthinkable?!

Having a dream, a desire to do the inconceivable, is significant to achieving greatness but more so significant is our commitment to it.

Enviousness, covetousness, jealousy is the desiring of something belonging to someone else. It could be anything from wealth, status to happiness, love and beauty. The typical jealous mindset says that if someone has something, why doesn’t he have it? why doesn’t he have the Ferrari? why is he not the owner of that big house? why is he not as famous as that actor? or why is he not intelligent as the guy next door? As a result he despises them. He hates the very fact that someone is superior than him. Such people also think that if they can’t have something, others should not have them too. If they can’t afford to buy a farm or be a billionaire my friend or my neighbour shouldn’t be able too. They can’t stand someone owning something that he is unable to.

How to disown this hurtful trait?

1.Find a goal: You would be saying, how come finding a goal is linked to ridding of jealousy. Well, it is very much so. When you find out what you really want to achieve in life, automatically, your whole focus is shifted to achieving that thing and only that thing. You have no time for resentment and enviousness. You don’t bother thinking about your neighbour who recently bought a Rolls Royce. You have got your own target to work towards. So put aside all the discontentments for others and ask yourself, what is my aim? what do i want to achieve in life? what am i so passionate about? what is my obsession? Believe me once you answer these questions you are too occupied to be bothered by others.

2.Change your attitude:
“Your mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy.” It is so applicable here if you notice. This neighbour of yours has got a better job than you, he is well off, got a loving family. Now it is totally up to you, either to envy him and wish his job be taken and he leads a miserable life or on the other hand you take inspiration from him and learn from him, notice the good things about him and trying to apply them on yourself. You see, it’s all about attitude. Tell yourself, “if he can do it, so can i, after all he is just a human being as i am.” You just have to have that confidence in you and how sensibly you go about it.

But what about the inborn qualities that people have?

You would be wondering now, ok that is that, but what about the naturally talented people. People who are born intelligent, or beautiful or lucky. First of all does it matter to you? Has it caused you any harm or given you any benefits? No! so why even bother? But you would be saying, you hate them for that very fact that they got something for free and that’s eating you inside. Well, if that is the case, then ask yourself, are there some people who might be saying the same thing about you? And believe me, you would find lots of people who wished they were as privileged as you. It may be the family that you are born into, or the place you belong to, or maybe for some bizarre reason they do find you attractive! Just kidding, but trust me there are people out there. As far as intelligence or luck is concerned, well you tell me, being born genius or fortunate is exciting or working hard and earning it and one day realising, “WOW! I am super smart and fortunate and you know what? I wasn’t born with it but i worked my ass off for it and i am proud of myself!” After all this is what makes life so exciting, having to earn something and being proud of it! Isn’t it? God! Life would so boring if i was gifted with all the life’s fortunes and i didn’t have to reach out for them.

Being jealous of someone isn’t something to be ashamed of. In fact if used in a positive way, it could take us along way. Life isn’t fair, you know it and i know it and this is what makes it exhilarating.

Now there are many ways in which we can comprehend the phrase “Life is too short”. Mostly, people perceive it as “You know what! Screw everything! Life is too brief to be thinking too much. You just straight away do things that you want to do and the way you want to do.” According to them people are insane to be wasting their precious time finding out their so-called ” Passion,” specially in this ever fast-moving world. “They should just right away get on with any thing they like and stick with it, and what is so difficult in finding out a fascination anyways?” They argue that there are so many fields, so many areas of interest, specially now than ever, that you can take on and achieve success and that you have to just pick one and go for it. Their take on this brief duration of time is that it should be fully lived and not wasted looking for a true desire or aim, or trying to find the reason of existence even if such thing exists.

Now the above argument seems pretty reasonable. I mean, we are given just a single life, and that too with its ever rapid speed specially now than ever, our time on this planet has become ephemeral than ever. But doesn’t this very fact of life being brief, makes you want to do something that you desire for? Doesn’t it call you for giving thoughts and considerations prior to taking any major step in life? Doesn’t this bitter reality of getting old someday and having to depend on someone to look after you in some way or the other, makes you realise that you ought to do something you would die for?
I am going to give you a scenario just to clear my whole point here. Suppose you choose engineering for a career, you are like, “This is what I think I like, and I feel I’m pretty good at it.” You don’t look no further, are very optimistic about your success. So you go to college, get a degree, then you get a well paid job or start something on your own. You are pretty happy about it in the end, earning more than most of the people you know at least. Time is passing by and you are going on with your life just fine.
Old and feeble now, you are sitting in one of those rise recliners, and you are examining your inner self. It is one of those days when you want to look back at your whole life and see what you did and what you didn’t, what is left to do, and what could have been better or being thankful for an apparently good thing to have not happened. You are pretty satisfied so far with your soul interrogation until you are like, “Wait a minute, what about my career? I mean did I really have to go for engineering? Was it the only thing that I wanted to do? Or could I have just waited a little longer until I have found my real objective? Suddenly you are in a state of utter confusion and despair.

Did I really live my life? Did I discover the aim, the craze that I was looking for? And did I devote my time to that passion of mine to the utmost of my sincerity? Make sure at the end of this short life, when we are confronted with these crucial questions, we answer them with a genuine smile on our faces.